Chapter One
The last thing I heard before I blacked out was a smooth yet desperate voice pleading with me to stay alive. Then all went white, then black. I woke up dazed and confused, unable to figure out where I was or even for a moment who I was. What just happened? Where is Anakin? Where are the babies?
Then I remembered. All at once the images and feelings slammed into me, knocking the breath from my tiered lungs. I was almost unconscious again when I saw Obi Wan step through the open doorway. He walked towards the bed looking at me with eyes full of so many emotions uncharacteristic of Jedi. He rested his hand on mine and sat down in a chair beside my bed.
"Are you alright?" He asked in his gentle voice.
"What happened," I asked, almost ashamed at how week my voice sounded, high pitched and shaking. "Where am I? Is Anakin-"
Obi Wan interrupted me with words that shook the universe. "There's no more Anakin, Padmé."
"What?" Some unexplainable barrier between my thoughts and my voice prevented me from saying anything else. I wanted to ask so many things, to say so many things. Is he dead? Did he really turn to the dark side? Did Obi Wan kill him?
I love him. There's still good in him. I have to find him.
"Anakin has died to himself. He's become Darth Vader. I tried to bring him back, Padmé, but it's no use. He's been overtaken and consumed by the dark side of the force."
I didn't understand what the dark side was or what the Sith were all about. I didn't understand how Anakin could deny everything he had lived for, deny the Jedi, deny me. Didn't he do this for me in the first place?
"No," I protested, "No. He's not evil. He just did this to save me. He can't be Sith. He..." I was wearing myself out with all of this protesting. I moaned groggily and squinted my eyes against the light.
"I'm sorry. It may have started that way, but Anakin's rage and lust for power grew in the dark side and made him forget all of that."
"There must be a way to-"
"No, Padmé. We both tried to make him stop, remember, but it was useless. Darth Vader has no care for Anakin's old life. Essentially Anakin is dead. I know that this isn't easy for you. I know you loved him. I loved him too. He was like my brother. It's all as Yoda said; the boy I trained is gone. The man you loved is gone. He's really more machine now than man, physically and emotionally. A machine programmed to hate and destroy."
Love had turned to hate. Compassion had turned to rage. Gentleness had turned to destruction. But one thing remained the same- passion. It was that passion inside of me that erupted from my eyes in fiery tears followed by erratic sobs that I couldn't have held back even had I tried. But I was too tiered, physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted to hold back my own hate. Not hate for Anakin. Hate for what had happened, for what everything and everyone was turning into.
It's because of what you've done, what you plan to do. You're going down a path I can't follow.
Just barely, I could feel Obi Wan stroking my undone hair and hear him whisper so-called consolations that meant absolutely nothing. I'm pretty sure I cried myself to sleep, all the while with Obi Wan never leaving my bedside.